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canapes!

Ok fine, so I haven't been keeping up with the european adventures entries....aaaaaaand fail.

I know. I know. I suck.

After uploading some pictures today, I've been reminded of one of the best and most interesting meals I've ever had, at a small restaurant about the size of my living room, in Barcelona. Maybe someday I'll actually blog about the rest of Barcelona, but right now I just want some canapes. However, I will mention that for the longest time, I wanted to go to Spain for its reputation of having amazing food, and it did not fail to deliver. Needless to say, I will be back.

Just imagine, for a moment, that you enter a cozy room with walls covered floor to ceiling with wines, oils, and cans of meat and vegetables. You walk up to a counter that's filled with a huge spread of marinated seafood, vegetables, meats, cheeses, olives, breads, spreads, and much more. You're greeted by this friendly man who speaks almost no english, but knows exactly what you want. All you have to do is point to something that looks remotely good, and he will create a little bruschetta-like toast that pairs what you picked with the perfect accompaniments. He'll proceed to pour you generous glasses of wines while you indulge your senses. These "canapes", as we've learned they are called, are served over toasts that are soft and flaky. Many of them were savory, some were sweet, and then there were some lingering in between...such as the buttery smoked salmon, yogurt, and truffled honey canape. This is how I imagine food to be served in heaven. But instead of going to heaven, and possibly having to change your entire belief system, all of this can be found at Quimet y Quimet.

AHHHHHHHH I want some right now!!!!!! This is exactly what we were thinking when we returned from the trip, and so we decided to create our own canapes. And though they were different from what we had at quimet y quimet, they were delicious and most of all, really fun to make and eat!

The key to this is a good spread of toppings, and good bread. Canape bread is painfully difficult to find in most US grocery stores. We went with these little thin arnold flatbreads, which worked well, but definitely wasn't the same. At quimet, they used these tiny flaky buns that were cut in half, the bread held up to the toppings and was the perfect three-bite size. Regardless, we certainly didn't hold back on the toppings, by preparing prosciutto, eggplant (aka. my drug in life), olives, artichokes, chorizo, chestnuts, our own homemade tomato spread and hummus, scallions with sour cream, and sardines.

And left the fun begin! I think this was the favorite, because it had chorizo... possibly another drug...